The Internet is a useful medium for communicating information. For example, in a web-based instant messaging service, a user logs into the messaging service and sends instant messages to another user logged into the service. In an electronic mail service, a user may send an email with information and/or an attached file to another user through a web-based email service. The information sent from one user to another may be shared with other users as well. For example, an email sent by one user may be forwarded to other email users and instant message text may be manually repeated by the first recipient of the message. Another example of sharing data over a network may be the sharing of video data between users having no trust relationship, such as through a web service provided by YouTube, Incorporated, of San Bruno, Calif.
One disadvantage of typical communication services is that they utilize infrastructures based on centralized servers, which raises concerns for trust and privacy. Additionally, users of typical communication services have minimal control over sharing information with other users outside their network. For example, once a user sends an email to a second user, there is no control over how that email is shared. The email may be shared as many times as subsequent recipient's desire. Furthermore, there is typically no indication of how important the information is to subsequent recipients.
It would be advantageous to provide improved sharing capabilities of information for users of a communication service.